Food and Community Thrive at a U.K. Allotment Garden

When landscape designer Laara Copley-Smith spends a Sunday afternoon in her vegetable garden, she does not step in the backyard. Instead she tucks into her plot of community garden — known as an allotment in the U.K. — five minutes out of her Surrey, England, home.

Copley-Smith rents this 255-square-meter (2,700-square-foot) bit of land from the local parish and also manages it. Throughout the nation, land plots similar to this were set aside for local residents to garden and grow plants in. For Copley-Smith, it is a wonderful opportunity to expand her home’s garden beyond one planted completely with boxwood.

“As a professional designer, I believe it is important to work with the soil, grow plants from tiny seedlings and learn by mistakes — experiment,” she states. This mantra extends past the professional field, serving as a vital lesson to all gardeners, especially those with access to this much gardening area.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

“In large summer I have so far, and I really like harvest time. Often I will just pop to the vegetable garden to select vegetables for that day,” Copley-Smith states. Any leftovers are shared with neighbors; nothing is wasted.

She varies her crop annually, based on previous successes and failures and what she’d love to eat during the year. Squash, pumpkin, spinach, young kale, broccoli and cauliflower are among the crops here.

“One cannot dismiss the effect, strong presence and healing capacity that the gardening and garden may have in someone’s life,” Copley-Smith, revealed here, states. “Gardening in almost any capacity is worthy of your energy and time.”

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

“Growing food plants, working with the weather, seasonal changes and studying patience are all components that will enlarge one’s professional skills,” she states.

Here netting protects pine from birds and cabbage white butterfly.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

The background of allotment parcels spans more than a century; a few references go as far back as the period of the Saxons, when cleared land sometimes would be jointly held.

The Small Holdings and Allotment Act of 1908 was the first modern laws seeing these plots. Subsequent acts passed during the century frequently collaborated with wartime and periods of economic turmoil — instances when demand for homegrown food was large. Today, waiting lists stage to allotments’ increasing popularity.

Revealed: Radicchio, zucchini blossom, bamboo leaf lettuce and plums out of Copley-Smith’s garden

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Tirza spinach thrives in the cool period.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Gardeners adopt allotment gardening as an opportunity to grow their own produce, but there’s more than vegetables to be gleaned from the storyline. An annual bonfire is held to burn off all diseased plant issue. Local residents attend, many of whom have worked the storyline for decades. Life tales and decades of gardening knowledge bring neighbors of diverse ages, personalities and backgrounds together.

And while Copley-Smith notes that interacting can be a component of allotment gardening, you can choose your own experience, she highlights: “You can potter and do your own thing, or you can engage with other people in conversation.”

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Shallots grow in neat rows.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Inspired by the design of traditional kitchen gardens, but with all the viability needed for handling such an extensive area, Copley-Smith designed a garden that’s beautiful both for its simplicity and productivity.

Bunk beds and pathways dominate her garden’s design. Oversize wood beds can be built up if she chooses to deepen the beds. Unpaved pathways allow for fast changes. The principal paths are 60 centimeters (2 feet) wide, and a number of the side paths are thinner.

Before Photo

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

She constructed a drop in back for tools and supplies.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Veronicastrum, sedum and Perovskia fill these summertime beds. Copley-Smith will include netting to protect the plants out of the fox cubs who love to jump in.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Veronicastrum and aster seed heads emerge early in the season.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

One area is dedicated to pollinator-attracting perennials. Copley-Smith enjoys flowers and notes how they constantly complement the vegetable garden.

Here we visit Veronicastrum, panicum bud, sedum just peeking through foxgloves, white and purple phlox, and poppy lavender. She also grows Helenium, asters, lavender, hydrangeas, roses, Agastache, tulips, ornamental onions, Perovskia, poppies and anything else that will fit.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Lavender, sweet peas, Perovskia and gaura in summertime.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Rotating the plants and amending the soil with organic matter and leaf molds guarantee healthy plants. Interplanting edibles with companion plants can also be important. Copley-Smith even blatantly enables some edibles to blossom and self-seed. Here she grows Veronicastrum, aster and Perovskia.

Pollinator plants attract natural fauna, but sometimes staying hands off promotes wildlife many; Copley-Smith retains a pile of logs as a habitat and cuts back spent grasses and shrubs only after the threat of winter has passed, to provide shelter and food for wildlife over winter.

Laara Copley-Smith Garden & Landscape Design

Miscanthus, deschampsia along with panicum blossoms in late winter.

Look into what others in your area have done, Copley-Smith states. “Success includes experimentation, time, patience, exploring, reading and committing something.”

More information:
The National Allotment Society | American Community Gardening Association

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